An artist's depiction of the ExoMars rover. (European Space Agency)The European Space Agency just secured 436 million euros to send its first-ever rover to Mars in 2020. But a proposal to survey a near-Earth asteroid — and eventually attempt to knock it off course — was not so lucky. Europe approved an extra 339 million euros for the ExoMars rover, and ESA said it could cobble together an additional 97 million euros by reshuffling funds internally, according to Nature. Prospects for the rover mission, which is already over budget and delayed from its original launch date in 2018, looked uncertain after the Schiaparelli crash.

Source: Washington Post December 05, 2016 17:25 UTC